Knaresborough and Fountains Abbey

Man, I cannot believe that I have been here for almost a month! And once again, I spent the weekend touring the countryside. This weekend I went to Knaresborough and to Fountains Abby.

Knaresborough is a market town that is along a river in North Yorkshire. This is probably the prettiest place that we have been so far. The hill side was littered with Tutor houses and tan stone buildings.

This is also the home of Mother Shipton and her cave; this is the oldest tour attraction in the United Kingdom. We toured the cave where she was born, the Petrification Well, and just walking along the water.

This is me in front of the Petrification well. The objects behind me are being turned into stone; it takes 3-6 months to turn a teddy bear into stone.

Making a wish in the FREEZING wishing well. Part of the ritual was that you had to let your and dry naturally after submerging it in the well otherwise your wish would not come true.

Mother Shipton was a witch and prophetess from sometime a REALLY long time ago (10th century I think). She apparently made predictions ranging the invention of cars and submarines to the death of this Earl (which happened exactly how she said) and the end of the world. The way that most people "know" her is because she is where the idea of what a witch looks like comes from. She had a hunched back, hooked nose with a wart, and a hooked chin.

This was a scary stone statue of Mother Shipton in the cave were she was born

One of her prophecies is that if this bridge falls three times the world will end, it has fallen twice already!

We then walked up to the market and had tea in the Oldest Chemist Shoppe in England and then walked over to the castle, or at least what was left of the castle. All that is left of this huge castle is twelve towers, the rest was destroyed after the civil war by Oliver Cromwell.

This is pretty much all that is left of the Castle.

Around 1 we went took a car to Fountains Abbey. This was an monetary about 800 years ago, but Henry VII did not like that they had allegiance to the Pope and not him, so he destroyed it, which was really too bad because it would have been nice to see whole. Anyways, these ruins are set on this huge estate that has large grassy lawns, wooded hills, and huge ponds with Greek-like statues in and around them.

I know this is going to sound anticlimactic, but all we did was walk around. It was nice just to stroll in the woods and through the mud, and climbing around on, in and through this very old structure. plus there were all these kids running around and it was nice to be around people that were not my own age.

I know it doesn't look it, but it is HUGE!

Well, I think that is all for the moment. I will need to think up somewhere else to go, so I can put lots more pictures up, not that I haven't been doing that already. Anyways, hope all is well!